“Oh, you are so beautiful! Do you like
me?”
“No, I don’t, I love you!” and he
gathered her up with a hug, and then set her on his
shoulder—apparently nine feet from the floor.
She was at home. She played with his long hair,
and admired his big hands and his clothes and his
carbine, and asked question after question, as fast
as he could answer, until I excused them both for
half an hour, in order to have a chance to finish my
work. Then I heard Cathy exclaiming over Soldier
Boy; and he was worthy of her raptures, for he is
a wonder of a horse, and has a reputation which is
as shining as his own silken hide.
Oh, it is wonderful here, aunty dear, just paradise!
Oh, if you could only see it! everything so wild
and lovely; such grand plains, stretching such miles
and miles and miles, all the most delicious velvety
sand and sage-brush, and rabbits as big as a dog,
and such tall and noble jackassful ears that that is
what they name them by; and such vast mountains, and
so rugged and craggy and lofty, with cloud-shawls
wrapped around their shoulders, and looking so solemn
and awful and satisfied; and the charming Indians,
oh, how you would dote on them, aunty dear, and they
would on you, too, and they would let you hold their
babies, the way they do me, and they are the
fattest, and brownest, and sweetest little things,
and never cry, and wouldn’t if they had pins
sticking in them, which they haven’t, because
they are poor and can’t afford it; and the horses
and mules and cattle and dogs—hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds, and not an animal that you can’t
do what you please with, except uncle Thomas, but
I don’t mind him, he’s lovely;
and oh, if you could hear the bugles: Too—too—too-too—
too—too, and so on—perfectly
beautiful! Do you recognize that one?
It’s the first toots of the reveille; it goes,
dear me, so early in the morning!—then
I and every other soldier on the whole place are up
and out in a minute, except uncle Thomas, who is most
unaccountably lazy, I don’t know why, but I have
talked to him about it, and I reckon it will be better,
now. He hasn’t any faults much, and is
charming and sweet, like Buffalo Bill, and Thunder-Bird,
and Mammy Dorcas, and Soldier Boy, and Shekels, and
Potter, and Sour-Mash, and—well, they’re
all that, just angels, as you may say.
The very first day I came, I don’t know how
long ago it was, Buffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy
to Thunder-Bird’s camp, not the big one which
is out on the plain, which is White Cloud’s,
he took me to that one next day, but this one
is four or five miles up in the hills and crags, where
there is a great shut-in meadow, full of Indian lodges
and dogs and squaws and everything that is interesting,
and a brook of the clearest water running through it,
